Let’s get this out of the way first. Yes, the European Union is a bureaucratic institution with a democracy deficit. Its regulatory role is often experienced as burdensome. All this has been true for a long time, but the post-Cold War expansion has made it even more unwieldy.
Let’s also get his out of the way. The Brexit vote had not a lot to do with the EU. It wasn’t a working class blow against globalization as Bernie Sanders would have us believe, even though many districts that traditionally voted Labor also voted to leave the EU. It was a bill presented to the British elites by the citizens who had been hoodwinked, first by Thatcher and then by Blair, into believing that nostalgia for an imperial past is a substitute for responsive politics. Even though the target of the discontent driving the Brexit vote was the EU, its origin is domestic.
